The Most Important Chapter.
"Pay attention now, this is the most important spell you'll ever learn," Star Swirl The Bearded said.
Trixie groaned and, for a brief instant, thought back over how she had come to be standing here with a demon raging before her, and a calm wizard at her side explaining another of his Most Important Spell You'll Ever Learn… s. Plural. That, Trixie had come to learn (no thanks to Star), was the crux of the matter.
"Let me guess, another portal spell?" Trixie asked.
"No, it's not just another portal spell. Haven't you been paying attention? Portal spells are only useful against endothaumic creatures and items. There's no point shoving a demon that produces its own magic into a magic-devoid world. All that happens is the world ends up bubbling over with demonic energy. You use the summon water spell."
The demon, meanwhile, was checking its watch. "Can we get this over with? I have a—" It didn't get any further because it was suddenly soaked in water. "What have you done?! This vest is suede!"
With a pop the demon disappeared back to its home realm.
"That is why you always need to know a good water spell. Demons always dress in fancy clothes and hate it when they get wet. Though I do feel bad for ruining that vest."
The logic was sound enough that Trixie had to resign herself to the fact that defeating powerful demons just required ruining their clothes.
"When do you use—I don't know—big spells?" Trixie asked. "Like that one Starlight used to go back in time and change history so that…" She trailed off because of the smirk Star wore. "What?"
"Time travel is way too hard. Don't bother trying. Only an alicorn could hope to actually travel through time—or a pony destined to become an alicorn, I suppose. The point is I have never made a time-travel spell."
"But—"
"Never. Starlight is your friend, isn't she?" As he asked, Star walked over to where the demon had been standing and scuffed out the hoofprints it'd left. "Did she describe the spell to you?" When Trixie didn't respond, Star turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
Trixie had grown so annoyed at his rhetorical questions that she had decided to deploy her best sarcasm, "Oh. I'm sorry. Did you want me to answer this one?" At his droll return look, Trixie knew she'd scored a point. "Yes, of course. Time symbols, a big portal she got sucked into, then in various timelines battling with Twilight who had also been sucked into it."
"Exactly! And when they came back, had anything changed at all?"
"Apart from a copious amount of very lewd books by an author calling themselves Thgiliwt Elkraps, who I am absolutely sure I know the real name of, no."
"Exactly! Oh, it's not hard to stack illusion spells like that, particularly ones cast by a powerful unicorn. Now, imagine how much better those illusions would be when a powerful unicorn and an alicorn cast them. I'm sure those fantasies were so realistic that even a princess couldn't tell they weren't real."
As a mare of many illusions herself, Trixie had to admit that it was a clever use of the art. She examined the argument from all sides and couldn't find a fault in it. "That was disingenuous, tricky, and utterly underhooved."
Star used his magic to stroke his namesake beard and smiled to match Trixie's own. "Thank you, I try my best."
Trixie had learned nearly ten times the spells she'd previously know. She had always had a good grasp on easy-to-cast enchantments, but now she had a whole host of simple solutions to life's problems. "What I don't get"—Trixie plucked up another of the pukwudgies with her telekinesis and wove a quick portal to stuff it through—"is why your magic looks so impressive."
"Ah. Pay attention, this is the most important spell you'll ever learn." Every time he said that—and he'd said it a lot—Star smiled broadly. He briefly paused his explanation to blast a bunch of the creatures with water, forcing them to run through a convenient portal to… somewhere.
"You think unicorns grow a horn this big or have magic this bright because they're better than anypony else?" Charging his magic, Star cast a unique spell—the first he'd ever made. "You are the only pony I've ever taught this one to, but I think you're ready."
Waiting patiently, Trixie gasped when Star shoved the spell into its component parts. She had been given these looks at spells so much lately that she had grown accustomed to absorbing the designs rapidly.
Star watched as his apprentice cast the spell. The effects were obvious—her horn grew nearly half its length again and her magic seemed to bubble up brighter than ever before. "It lasts for about two days. I'd suggest renewing it every morning. I'd suggest getting used to the extra length, though with your height you won't be crashing into door frames at least."
"You were right." Trixie conjured up water and squeezed it between her brightly glowing magic so she could look at the effects of the spell herself. "This is the most important spell."
"You know there's a lot of irony at play here?" Trixie watched as the huge bear-creature nuzzled against her hoof.
"I had heard a story about a mare matching your description and an Ursa Minor." The situation had been another simple one to deal with. Star was always happiest when he didn't have to use a portal—portals actually took more magic than most other spells. "It's an important spell, the most important you'll ever learn."
"Deja vu," Trixie said under her breath.
Having grown used to his apprentice's comments on his teaching methods—and just not caring what she thought of them—Star pushed on. "On its own, fairly useless, but combined with the water creation spell…" Casting the spell in question on the second bucket of water, Star turned it into honey too. Then he broke the spell apart for Trixie to examine.
"This turns a liquid into another liquid. That's…" Fumbling for a word grand enough to encompass the idiocy of magic was sometimes a challenge even for Trixie. "Words fail me. I could turn water into liquid gold, magma, or—or anything!"
"I told you it was the most important." Star reached out a hoof and carefully rubbed the well-fed bear behind the ear.
Trixie hated to admit it—and she certainly didn't do things she hated—but he had been right every time he'd said that phrase.
It had been a long walk across a swamp, then a climb up a mountainside, before Trixie and Star finally saw the village stretching out before them. The reason they'd come was due to a request from one of Starlight's students.
"Well," Trixie said as she surveyed the Kirin village, "I can certainly see why Tinder Flare's letters from home had been written on asbestos.
"In my day, wizards didn't come anywhere near these lands. The Kirin might trade well, but the niriK were well-feared." Rubbing his mighty beard, Star pondered the situation and—above all else—how to turn it into a lesson for Trixie. That was the true skill of a master wizard, after all.
Master Wizardry - Book One: Getting Your Apprentice to Do Everything
"I believe I will leave this one to you, Great and Powerful Apprentice Trixie. Consider it… a test." Now Star stroked his beard mysteriously.
"You're full of horse-apples. What was the first rule of wizardry? Don't use more magic than you have to? Making me do it is you taking things to their limit." Though she knew his game, and voiced that she knew it, Trixie also could admire it. "The Great and Powerful Trixie will have to take on her own apprentice as soon as possible."
"Now you're well on your way to becoming a wizard," Star said with a chuckle. "Okay, journeymare wizard, how will you tackle the problem of these kirin repeatedly blowing themselves into oblivion?"
"Well, long-term, Starlight's school is doing the best work. Teaching them friendship is the best way to calm them down—or so she said. Unannounced incinerations are down 500% at the school, just from kirin of course. Dragons still burn classrooms down at random." Narrowing her eyes, Trixie looked around the village for ideas. "The obvious answer would be to relocate the village to Seaquestria."
Star couldn't help himself from a good chuckle. "A fair solution, though I doubt Queen Neuovo would like her realm becoming a dumping ground for incendiary-inclined creatures—particularly ones who would already be upset for being shoved through a portal. Though, perhaps a little diplomancy would work there."
"Diplomancy is when a wizard uses diplomacy, isn't it?" Trixie already knew the answer. After all, not using magic was the best way to use the least amount of magic.
Beaming in delight, Star almost reached out and petted his journeymare on her head. "Very good. Yes. Perhaps we could market it as undersea saunas? Heated tide-pools? Anyway, that's for later. How do we stop these niriK from running amok right now?"
"There's no reason we can't do those here. Give the Kirin with the hottest tempers jobs—build them a tourist industry." Trixie tapped at her chin with a hoof. "They're going to need a better water source. I heard from Starlight that their current one has a curse-problem. Something about swimming in it causing you to be unable to talk."
"What's the most important rule to being a wizard?"
"Don't use magic when you could—"
"No. Err, the one about problems being solutions."
"You need to be more specific, or you could start actually numbering them." With a sigh, Trixie brought the rule to mind. "A wizard should always look at a problem as a solution to another problem. So, the cursed stream should become a way for Kirin to make themselves happier? If we're going to start a spa service, perhaps there could be a zen treatment?"
Clearing her throat, Trixie affected a tone usually reserved for marketers or shysters. "Come visit the calm Kirin Pools resort. Relax in the heated pools, enjoy the flambe cooking, and perhaps partake in the zen treatment of absolute calm that can only be obtained through a week of care in utter silence."
"Yes. Now let's sell that to the Kirin—err, after putting out their village," Star said.
Returning to Ponyville had felt oddly anticlimactic for Trixie. She'd literally toured Equestria and solved all manner of problems for ponies, Kirin, dragons, hippogriffs, and even a diamond dog who'd been unable to find any gemstones. Now she had to face the biggest challenge of all—living in the shadows of ponies that were, at least technically and on paper, maybe more great and/or powerful than she was.
But there was a new confidence in Trixie Lulamoon, a confidence she had definitely needed (not that she had lacked confidence, but Trixie was always open to more of her best attribute). She strode with a slight prance in her step right up to the School of Friendship and knocked on the door with the staff she had come to carry in all her travels.
Gnarled and worn with what looked like centuries of walking, the stick was actually one she'd found on the edge of the forest on her way into town. She cleared her throat in preparation.
"Uh, hello? The school is closed for the winter. You'll—" Young Deathfire froze at the sight of the pony before him. He'd been Headmare Glimmer's assistant for nearly a year, and he'd heard rumors of Trixie Lulamoon. "Y-You're Miss. Lulamoon, right?"
"Wizard Lulamoon the Great and Powerful. Please escort me to the headmare." Wizardry, being 99% confidence, dictated that Trixie just start walking forward and let the dragon that was nearly twice as tall as her get out of the way. Of course, as wizardry always did, it worked.
"Th-This way!"
Clop-clop clop-clop thunk. Clop-clop clop-clop thunk. Such was the sound of Trixie's walking when combined with her staff hitting the stone floor. She followed the dragon, not seeing much change in the school around her. When she reached the headmare's office, she let Deathfire open the door and introduce her.
"H-Headmare? Wizard Lulamoon is here to see you."
The look in Starlight's eyes when she lifted her head from paperwork to see her visitor was enough to warm Trixie's heart. "What happened to your horn, Trixie?"
"I have learned the ways of the wizards of olde." Trixie was careful to pronounce the E on the end to make the phrase more old-timey and fancy. "And Star Swirl The Bearded himself trained me in the ways of grand sorcery, enhancing my power beyond that of a normal unicorn!"
Starlight had no idea what to say to that. Her jaw had fallen open and she couldn't stop staring at the imposing figure that Trixie had become. At last the dazzle wore off enough for her to ask, "In just a year?"
"Well, once you learn the most important rule, it gets easier." Trixie smirked—she had absolutely no intention of sharing any of the rules or spells with Starlight.
Author's Note
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